The comicbook Mike Carey and I have been conjuring up is starting it's run in comicbook stores around the country September 20 2006..."Wetworks:Worldstorm". This will be an ongoing "rant" exclusively pertaining to the creative process of the art and story. This endeavors sole purpose is to let comicbook fans obtain an insiders look into the creative and fun job of creating a modern comicbook.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Wetworks #14 Cover (detail)

Here is my first shot of the old team (minus Dane, Mother and Pilgrim...all of whom are on different covers) in all their fighting glory. I wanted to draw Vampires but that would've made each individual figure rather smallish, so I opted for more of a close-up shot. I think it contains their spirit pretty sharply, meaning as Dozer and Clay unload on Vampires (off camera) Grail and Jester headlong jump into the fray.

I have to say it is so easy drawing these guys again...alot of familiar fun. Notice also I've given the two heavy infantry guys these new "transformable" wrist guns that attach thru ammo belts to ammo packs on their backs. I have this idea that before a battle regular WW's soldiers can sneak into and around a target area and bury these ammo packs along the way, and during the fight as they run out of ammo Mother can lead them to these buried packs. Notice also that the ammo belts are not free floating like before, they are now more streamlined and are fully attached to the guys bodies. More sleeker look and less prone to "snag" on things.

Next cover...Dane and Ash and Ab-death back at WW's HQ in the command room which is really a huge holo chamber where the whole battle field in full lifesize scale is projected so that Dane can in real time "wander" within the target zone guiding our teams as they are fighting within the real target area. Will be sketching out a layout later in the week and so might be drawing this cover this weekend which Rich will ink...

15 comments:

Hey Whilce, thanks for the new photos an welcome back to the blog. I still enjoy your covers and I actually found an old aschan wetworks book that you had signed a few years ago that I bought:)Back when ww first came out. I hope wetworks still continues. Take care

Great to see the old team back in action Whilce, I love your ideas about prepping the battlefield befoe the action takes place, I really think you could do something cool with the sniper role, the holographic battlefield and the portal between the real world and the other side. Loads of great ideas.

Whilce, you give me new reasons to love Grail all over again! The new face mask is fantastic! I wish you could be back on interiors again so that we didn't have to wait for your next mini. btw, when is your next project coming out? The last issue of Batman Confidential came out this past month, and now I don't have my Whilce fix :)

These covers are spectacular. The coloring on Mother is just... jaw-dropping. Especially on the face, and inside the whites of her eyes. That's phenomenal stuff. The gold looks quite polished, too.

I want a WetWorks video game. Perhaps a third-person action/adventure; or a first person shooter, using the plot from the WetWorks books, casting the game with characters familiar, possibly new, and a horde of badguys.

The genre blending of this book alone makes for a serious injection of originality in the first person shooter place of video games. Combining science fiction, horror, military and superheroics, this has the potential to be something amazing in the video game field. Especially if it was handled by folks that admire the source material, and have a desire to create a damned good video game.

The design work alone on the characters, the weaponry, the monsters and "villains" of the book, make such a ripe field for something like this.

Even just thinking about the possibility of multi-player gaming involving the host of characters and creatures from the comic book makes the potential for this to be something HUGE immense.

Unlike games like Halo where the difference between the human and alien characters is technically no different than a Mortal Kombat palate swap, here you have the potential to use basic humans, the WetWorks team, vampires, frenzied vampires, werewolves, and so much more that give the game a fighting game like set of endless possibilities.

"When I became a man I put away childish things, including the desire to be very grown up."

C.S. Lewis said this when people asked him why he wrote books for children. This reminds me to keep in mind the origin of what I love most...drawing. Before I knew what Marvel or D.C. was, before I knew what a comic book, or super hero was, I drew pictures. I love drawing. I can't recall what I liked drawing the most, probably because I drew so much there is no way to remember. I drew all the time, with any tool that created a line on paper.

Amongst the contracts, negotiations, signings, failed projects, good and bad reviews, deadlines, tussles with editors and studio execs., 35 airports a year, the same convention halls over and over, and anything else that goes along with the professional artist label...it is easy for me to forget what I wanted to do this for.

I love drawing.

That's the end of it really. I love it. I love the kid that lives here no matter how many books I sell, or how much money I put in the bank. I need to remind myself to put away the childish "desire to be very grown up." and just put pencil to paper. I never used to need anyone to like what I drew. I didn't know to want it. I just wanted to turn a blank piece of paper into something, anything, just as long as it looked fun. An animal, a world that I have never seen, a twist on the world I have. Amongst all the things that have over shadowed that ideal, I have lost the child.

After hearing this quote, I wrote it down and pinned it on the bulletin board in front of my table. That's why these warm up drawings started happening. I always told myself I didn't have time to draw anything for fun, I had to work. But, like those parents who have kids and need to make time for them no matter what...I am reminding myself to do the same.

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About Me

I love the process of creating stories and characters. I could (and do) spent most of my time in my favorite pastime "World biulding" That is creating or re-creating worlds for characters to wallow in.